


Listen

by RosyPages



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: And sometimes they forget, Charlie is an alien, Charlie is hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Matteusz comforts him, Sensitive Hearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 05:08:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12833973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosyPages/pseuds/RosyPages
Summary: What if Rhodians had sensitive hearing?Because sometimes Charlie's friends forget he's not human.





	Listen

Matteusz was so happy that they’d all managed to survive the explosion, he hadn’t realized anything was wrong until they’d gotten home. Charlie had been acting strangely, but he’d put that down to almost being killed (again). Quill was quick to disappear into her room as soon as they got home, which left the two of them with the rest of the house to themselves. Usually they’d put on a movie after near death experiences, snuggle, and make hot coco… But there was none of that this time. When Matteusz had tried to ask him what he wanted to do, Charlie had flinched away as if expecting to be struck. 

“Are you alright?”

He nodded mutely. His eyes seemed unfocused, gazing past his boyfriend instead of at him. 

“Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?” Worry fizzled in his stomach. Earth didn’t know anything about alien biology, if Charlie was hurt they couldn’t take him to a doctor! He also doubted Quill would be any help… 

“No. No, I’m fine. I was further away than you.” The response was blunt and soft. There was no smile, no joke to follow. He was just still and gazing far away. 

“Charlie-”

“I think… I think I’m tired. I’m gonna…” He trailed off, nodding upstairs. Without another word, he was gone.

Matteusz was confused. He hadn’t seemed hurt before, during the alien attack… He’d had eyes on him when the building exploded too. They’d both been far enough away to escape the worst of the damage. The whole group were suffering from singed eyebrows, but that was it. He’d only seen Charlie covering his ears, but that was fair… it’d been very loud.

Maybe Charlie was mad at him. Maybe Matteusz had done something to upset him… 

He turned and made his way upstairs, taking two at a time. Had he said something stupid? Had he fucked up somehow? The worry from before had increased tenfold.

“Charlie?” he called into the darkness. The lights in their room were out and all the curtains had been drawn. His boyfriend was laying in the bed. Sleeping? Had he gone to sleep early so he didn’t need to talk to Matteusz?

Charlie gasped in response, shifting just slightly under the covers.

Is he crying? He wondered, taking a step closer. What did I do?!

Then he noticed that Charlie had his hands clamped firmly around his ears. Not only were both of his eyes closed, but they were squeezed tight in pain. Charlie was in pain…

“Are you alright? I thought you said you weren’t hurt!” Matteusz’s voice had slipped into an angry bark that snapped into the air like a bullhorn. Charlie only gasped again, shuddering with his hands pressing so hard against his head that his fingertips had gone white.

Would Charlie have brought up that he was in pain before this? Probably not… And Quill definitely wouldn’t have said anything.

“Why is this planet so loud?” Charlie whimpered. His voice was so soft Matteusz could barely hear it.

“What?”

“Shh…”

Matteusz blinked. Then he repeated himself, whispering this time. “What’s wrong?” he asked his boyfriend. Although he had tried to match his voice level to Charlie’s, he still flinched at the words.

“It wasn’t a problem until now. It’s just… the explosion. Everything sounds robotic. Like it’s coming out of a grainy speaker. I can hear the couple arguing next door. I can hear the dog barking in the house behind ours. I can-” His voice broke into a sob.

“What do you mean…” Matteusz trailed off.

He knew Charlie was an alien… but he acted so human sometimes that it was easy to forget. He looked human and he acted human (for the most part) so he’d just assumed that Charlie was just like them. It never occurred to him before that this wasn’t the case. That there was something else going on.

Without another word, he slipped from the room, this time trying to be as quiet as possible. He found himself in front of Miss. Quill’s door.

Going to open it, he hesitated, and then knocked gently.

There was a grunt from within. Matteusz took this as permission and opened the door. The shriek of the hinges hung in the air like church bells.

Quill was perched on her bed, flipping through a book with a large block of chocolate at her hip. She neither looked up nor stopped reading when Matteusz walked in.

“Do Rhodians have sensitive hearing?”

“Yep.” She didn’t seem the least surprised about his question.

“You knew Charlie was having trouble.”

“Yep.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“Why should I?”

“Because! -” Matteusz stopped and took a deep breath before his voice could get any louder. Quill had looked up from her book and was staring at him with something close to amusement. Or at least interest. He glared at her (he’d never glared at anyone before except his parents. It didn’t quite do what he was hoping for, but he felt the slightest bit better for it). 

Then he turned away, the floorboards creaking under his feet. Every slight knock of the furniture or scrape of a chair leg made him flinch. But eventually he made his way back to Charlie, this time with a pair of headphones in his hands. 

“Here try this,” he whispered. At first Charlie didn’t move, but slowly he began to unfurl himself. At last he sat up and pulled his hands away from his ears. His eyes were filled with pain and his face was so pale he looked like a corpse.

Matteusz carefully placed the earphones over Charlie’s head and switched them on. They were big and clunky, but they could block out the noise of an explosion next door. Matteusz had used them when he’d lived with his parents to block out the noise of their arguing. Once his father had thrown a chair across the living room and out the front window. Matteusz hadn’t heard a thing.

The effect was instantaneous. Charlie’s face screwed up, eyes clenching shut again, and his whole body trembled. He was frozen for what must’ve only been half a second, but it felt like an eternity. Then he seized the headphones and threw them off. His hands clamped over his ears, but not before Matteusz saw a trickle of blood drip from his ear down to his neck.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasped, pulling Charlie tight against his chest without thinking about it. His boyfriend went rigid for a moment, but then relaxed and buried his head against his chest. “I thought that would work…”

“Static… Hurt.”

Matteusz bit his lip. He hadn’t thought about it, but the headphones had gotten static-y over the years. If they were on but no noise was playing through them he’d be able to hear a weird humming sound. It’d barely been noticeable to him, but of course it’d been noticeable to Charlie. 

“Do you want to try them against with music?”

Charlie shook his head. There was silence for the next few moments. The blood had dried over his neck and Matteusz went to get a wash cloth. When he finished wiping the blood away, he’d gotten another one and lay it against his boyfriend’s forehead. After that they sat in silence. Charlie melded himself against Matteusz, one ear against his chest and the other one firmly covered with Matteusz’s hand. They lay like that for a while.

“Your heartbeat is nice,” the prince mumbled.

“What?”

“Your heartbeat is nice. It blocks everything else out. Don’t move, okay?”

Matteusz smiled into Charlie’s hair. “I wouldn’t dream about it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe I found this floating around my computer?
> 
> Comments are appreciated.


End file.
